Hamilton City Council

Advocate for stronger rules and real consequences for poor conduct around the council table that leads to poor decision making.

Improve transparency by making council processes and decisions even more accessible to the public and support citizens assemblies.

Support new and better ways for communities to have a real say on local issues and continue to drive for community committees.

Celebrate ethnic celebrations such as independence days, new year days and holidays to reflect a multicultural city.

Investigate removing the ward system as voters can currently vote for less than half the people who make decisions that affect them.

Review the number of council employees as staff are a large cost for ratepayers to bear and it is necessary to know if it is getting value for money.

Establish monthly community assemblies and online submissions rotating through neighbourhoods to gather resident feedback on services.

Host monthly neighbourhood assemblies with councillors in each ward to co-design improvements and gather early input on upcoming plans.

Mandate iwi co-governance on resource and planning decisions and require at least 10% of council works go to Maaori businesses.

Continue to make regular content about what happens at council, how to make submissions, and involve the public in processes.

Continue to support the Disability Advisory Panel and the Age Friendly Panel to embed the voices of Hamiltonians in decision-making.

Increase council's democracy funding to make voting easier, especially with the loss of post boxes in local elections.

Publish clear, plain-language summaries of major council decisions so residents know how money is spent and why.

Review internal costs, including executive salaries, to ensure ratepayers are not funding bloated back-office spending.

Stop spending beyond core services until debt is under control and infrastructure is up to standard.

Investigate how council can use more participatory democracy tools to get better engagement.

Support changes to standing orders to record attendance of all councillors at briefings and workshops.

Support council staff to better communicate council decisions, including why council did not do something.

End race-based policies across local government and treat every resident equally and fairly.

Oppose voting rights for unelected iwi representatives and ensure decisions rest with elected councillors.

Uphold free speech in council venues so lawful community groups can access them without bias.

Hold more council meetings in local communities by texting a question out to your phone that you can reply to in a poll.

Increase public access to council data for transparency from parking meter use to reports on each vehicle accident in city causing damage.

Strengthen co-governance with tangata whenua about two official languages in legislation, NZ sign language is one of them.